Books Aren’t Dead

A recent Newsweek proclaimed: “Books Aren’t Dead.” While that might seem evident as you walk through any bookstore, it wasn’t so obvious just a few years ago. We have been told that this is a media-oriented generation that is more interested in visual images rather than reading words on a page.

Some were referred to the “Gutenberg Parenthesis” to illustrate that we were moving back to oral traditions of learning. Before Gutenberg and his printing press, knowledge was formed and transmitted orally. Scholars were saying that in this post-Gutenberg era, knowledge is formed through “secondary orality” on the Internet. In other words, books (and the written word) were merely a parenthesis in human history.

Others pointed to the cost of books and the number of bookstores and publishers having difficulty staying in business. So they predicted that book publishing would be on the decline.

But that’s not what the statistics say. The number of books in print in 2008 rose 38 percent from the year before. And that year itself was up 38 percent from 2006. It appears we have more books in print than ever before.

According to Newsweek, part of the reason is university libraries. They are hawking publishing rights to the contents of their stacks (or at least those books which are out-of-print or in the public domain). For example, the University of Michigan has partnered with Google to digitize more than 400,000 titles. Cornell will do the same with their 500,000 titles.

I might add that the electronic age has also made book publishing and book reading more inviting. At a recent writer’s conference, I told budding writers struggling to find a publisher to become their own publisher and put their book online as an e-book.

Book reading has become so much more convenient with devices like Kindle2 and other digital readers. Reading an e-book online, downloading it to your computer, or reading it on your Kindle or iPhone also significantly reduces the number of trees that need to be cut down to print books.

Books aren’t dead. There are more than ever. And many of the titles are available in electronic formats that reduce your carbon footprint. Pick up a book or a digital reader, and enjoy. I’m Kerby Anderson, and that’s my point of view.